This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and rejoice therein!

Introit

(Ps 104) The Lord hath led forth his people in gladness, alleluia: and his chosen ones in joy. Alleluia, alleluia. ℣ Praise the Lord, and call upon his name: publish his works among the Gentiles. Gloria Patri... The Lord...

Paschal week is about to close; the Church, therefore, now asks our Lord to grant to us, her children, that the joy we have experienced during this happy Octave may lead us to the still greater joy of the eternal Pasch.

Collect

Grand, we beseech thee, O almighty God, that we, who with reverence have celebrated this Paschal solemnity, may happily arrive at everlasting joys. Through, etc.

Epistle

Lesson from the Epistle of St. Peter, (I, Ch. 2)
Wherefore laying away all malice, and all guile, and dissimulations, and envies, and all detractions, As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation: If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and made honourable by God: Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore it is said in the scripture: Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious. And he that shall believe in him, shall not be confounded. To you therefore that believe, he is honour: but to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner: And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set. But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Who in time past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy; but now have obtained mercy.

Reflection

The neophytes could not have received any more appropriate instruction than this, which the Prince of the Apostles addresses to us all. St. Peter wrote this first Epistle to the newly baptized of those days. He affectionately calls them new-born babes. He urges them to that virtue which so becomes the age of infancy—the virtue of simplicity. He tells them that the doctrine they have been taught will be to them a milk, which will feed and strengthen them. He invites them to taste how sweet is the Lord they have now vowed to serve.

After this, he speaks of one of the leading characteristics of Christ, namely, His being the foundation and corner Stone of God’s house. It is upon Him that must rest the faithful, who are the living stones of the spiritual edifice. He alone can give them solidity; and hence, when about to return to His Father, He chose and established upon earth another rock—a rock that should be ever visible, united with and based upon His own divine self, and partaking of His solidity. The Apostle’s humility forbids this developing the whole truth as related in the Gospel, which tells us of his glorious prerogative; but if we remember the words spoken by our Lord to St. Peter, we understand the whole doctrine implied in our Epistle.

The Apostle is silent about his own dignity as the rock, on which Jesus has built His Church; but observe the glorious titles he gives to us, who have been made members of that Church by Baptism. You are, says he, a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people! Oh, yes! what a difference there is between one that is baptized and one that is not! Heaven is opened to the one, and shut against the other; the one is a slave of the devil, and the other is a king in Christ Jesus, the eternal King, whose brother he has now become; the one cut off from God, the other offering Him a sacrifice of infinite worth by the hands of the great High Priest, Jesus. And all these gifts have been bestowed upon us by a purely gratuitous mercy; we had done nothing to merit them. Let us, then, offer to the Father who has thus adopted us, our humble acts of thanksgiving; let us go back, in thought, and renew the promises which were made in our name, as the essential condition of our being admitted to all these graces.

From this day forward, the Church ceases to use, during Paschal Time, the Responsory called the Gradual. She substitutes, in its stead, two versicles, with the Alleluia repeated four times: the formula is less solemn, but more joyous. During the first six days of the Octave, which bear an analogy with the six days of creation, she would maintain the customary majestic gravity of her chants; now that she has reached the day whereon the Creator rested after His work was finished, she gives free scope to the holy joy, wherewith she is filled.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Psalms 117: 24 - This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad and rejoice therein.
Alleluia. ℣. Praise the Lord, ye his servants; praise the Name of the Lord.

Sequence

Let Christians offer to the Paschal Victim the sacrifice of praise.
The Lamb hath redeemed the sheep: the innocent Jesus hath reconciled sinners to His Father.
Death and life fought against each other, and wondrous was the duel: the King of life was put to death; yet now He lives and reigns.
Tell us, O Mary! what sawest thou on the way?
I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ; I saw the glory of Him that had risen.
I saw the Angels that were the witnesses; I saw the winding-sheet and the cloth.
Christ, my hope, hath risen; He shall go before you into Galilee.
We know that Christ hath truly risen from the dead. Do Thou, O conqueror and King! have mercy upon us. Amen. Alleluia.

Gospel

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to John Ch. 20
At that time: The first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre; and she saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre. She ran, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the sepulchre. And they both ran together, and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And when he stooped down, he saw the linen cloths lying; but yet he went not in. Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen cloths lying, And the napkin that had been about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place. Then that other disciple also went in, who came first to the sepulchre: and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

(Easter Saturday ~ Dom Prosper Gueranger)